The Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Department continues its 2018-19 season with Molières classic comedy, TARTUFFE.

Initially censored following its premiere in 1664, TARTUFFE is a bold work that is decidedly relevant today. Set in present-day Los Angeles, TARTUFFE is the story of a con man disguised as a pious spiritual leader who wheedles his way into the home of a gullible, affluent patriarch in the midst of a mid-life crisis  promptly setting the household topsy turvy. If not for the quick witted Dorine, grounded Elmire, and infinitely patient Cléante, all might be lost! Young love, lechery, deception, and delusion collide in TARTUFFE, Molières most famous work that skewers religious hypocrisy and self-inflated egotism.

Directed by Domenique Lozano, TARTUFFE examines how power is vulnerable to manipulation by piety, hypocrisy, and gullibility. Although the French King Louis XIV privately enjoyed TARTUFFEs debut, he was persuaded to ban the play after religious leaders called Molière a devil clothed in human flesh and the Archbishop of Paris threatened to excommunicate anyone who attended a performance. Molières defense argued that comedy is a physical embodiment of the unreasonable, and so the play of reason against the irrational is the necessary subject of comedy.

I love that it is a comedy, shares Lozano, one that moves with lightning speed, slams characters up against each other brutally and brilliantly, and deals with a terrifying situation with humor, wit and grace.